


Safe Harbor

by 99_Girl



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Healing, In Universe, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-06-27
Packaged: 2018-07-18 14:03:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7318165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/99_Girl/pseuds/99_Girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke and Bellamy spend a night on Luna's rig. She won't meet with them until the next day and finally being forced to slow down gives them a chance to talk and enjoy themselves for once.</p><p>Post S3.  I wrote this because I really needed these two nerds to sit down, do something fun, and talk out their issues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Safe Harbor

   
**Time: 0934 HOURS**   
  
_Thank god for tetanus shots_. Clarke turns off the shower faucet, carefully avoiding plaques of barnacled, jagged rust and soap scum around the outside edge. Even so, potential Lockjaw couldn't have done a damned thing to keep her from enjoying that lengthy, steamy rinse. Washing away a week’s worth of grime and loosening the cling months of crappy memories felt so good-- and reminded her of what her grandmother used to tell her when she was little: _If you don't wash up well, you'll start to grow potatoes on your skin._ Clarke smiles. It's been a long time since she's had a chance to think about her grandparents. She steps carefully from the shower, hoping not to trip in the shoes she'd been told to wear in the bathroom. They'd called them "flip-flops".

"Anyone in here?" Silence. _Good_.

Clarke's family had a large, private apartment on The Ark, so the notion of a communal bathroom is weird to her, despite how she and The Hundred had almost no privacy in the Dropship camp. But there hadn't been much choice; not that there’s any choice here, unless she wants to hang her ass off the side of the rig or stand naked in the rain. Somehow she doubts that would fly.

She's seen Grounders wearing thong shoes, but they weren’t used on The Ark. The damned things spread her toes uncomfortably and are slippery from her wet soles, but vastly preferable to a fungal infection.

Clarke sighs and pats her face vigorously. _Get a grip, Griffin. You're just nervous_. And it's true. She is. Her hope is to organize scouting missions using Luna’s ships in order to find a safe place to live. It’s a big ask, though.

 

***

  
_When she and Bellamy arrive, Luna greets them on the deck of her hulking oil rig. Clarke hadn’t noticed during their last visit that there are no railings hedging the main platform, nothing to keep them from whipping right off and into the sea. But she and Bellamy stay close, his solid form blocking cutting winds which threaten to knock her on her ear._

_"You are welcome to our hospitality. Our home is your home," Luna announces, voice strong and clear, harmonious with the whistling, tangy gales; her elegant form unbowed by the winds as if weighted by quiet gravitas. "As it is, I have business to attend to, and while I know that you're anxious to meet with me, you are looking quite ragged. You'll be no use without some rest and food. We've prepared rooms for you with fresh clothing, dried fruits, and other comforts. Elaine will guide you to your quarters and show you where to find the bathroom and galley." A sweet, tall girl with chestnut hair and violet eyes appears from within what Clarke guesses to be the command station, beckoning them to follow. It’s a relief to see that the lower decks have railings, since much of the path to the living quarters wraps around the outside of the main structure._

 

***

  
Clarke hadn't intended to take such a long shower. Elaine explained that they merely used them to rinse off. The method of actually cleaning yourself is with oil. A large oaken barrel of pumpkin seed and lavender oil blend sits to the side of the bathroom. The walls are tiled in white and a vivid blue-green, more blue than green: clean and bright in contrast to the dusky grout between. She chuckles softly at something her art teacher said once: _The early 2000’s were ruled by cerulean_. Since landing on Earth, Clarke had made her own private challenge of trying to identify when things were built or remodeled by what colors were used. She wants to know the people who came before in whatever way she can.

Bellamy had decided to nap and Elaine promised privacy while they settled in, so Clarke dries her skin out in the open, then hangs her towel on one of the wall hooks. Cupping some oil into her palm, she sets to work massaging her limbs and torso. It's relaxing and invigorating at the same time, and for a second she's able to stop obsessing over their daunting responsibilities and _just enjoy something_. Just as she's finishing her calves, the door behind swings open. Without thinking, startled, she spins around.  
  
To Bellamy's credit, the second he sees her he covers his eyes and turns away. He clears his throat and drawls, "I knew you wanted to make a good impression on Floukru, but I didn't think you'd do it by flashing them your goods." Clarke notes that he’s only wearing a towel.  
  
Mortified, she twirls on the spot and grabs her own, wrapping it tightly around herself as high as her armpits allow. "Sorry, I thought you were napping.”  
  
“I woke up.”

“It's okay to turn around now. I’m finished here, anyway."

"You sure?"

“Yep, go ahead."  
  
Slowly, he rotates, gaze still averted. She relaxes enough to appreciate the humor of the situation. Somehow during their time at the Dropship and traveling in the wild, she and Bellamy had avoided seeing one another naked, despite pretty much everyone else seeing the two of them. "It's okay. I'm covered." They're both flushed.

"Don't worry, Princess. I didn't see anything.” It’s been a long time since he’s called her that. Grinning, he adds, “It's no big deal as long as you're okay. You've got it backwards, though.”

"What backwards?"  
  
"You're supposed to use the oil before you rinse off." He points at the barrel.

"Oh, okay. Elaine didn't say specifically. Where'd you learn that?"  
  
"Section 17B was usually on water rations. Unfiltered Soybean oil is how we'd keep ourselves clean so that we could save some extra water for Octavia's bottles and diapers. We’d rub ourselves down with the oil, then wipe off with damp cloth. It sucked most of the time, but I’m a big enough person to admit that wandering around oiled and shirtless was a decent way to get laid." He stretches and it draws her attention to his bare torso and the thin towel slung beneath the cut of his hips. Clarke’s mouth feels more arid than a desert and she’s pretty sure, if she’s not careful, her next sentence will come out in fluent dumbass.

During their various treks and expeditions, she and Bellamy have talked about a lot of things, generally getting to know one another during the quiet moments absent of strategizing or pathos, but discussing sex openly was new.  
  
"Soooo-- these 'flip-flop' things kind of suck, right?"  
  
_Yep_. _There it is_. Clarke suppresses the urge to drown herself in the oil barrel. Graciously, Bellamy accepts her bid for a more demure line of conversation.  
  
"Yeah, they feel fucking weird." Clarke can tell by his stance, arms akimbo and chest high, that he's showing off a little. She’s flustered and pink, and pretty certain he’s noticed. There's never been a question of Bellamy Blake's attractiveness and she will concede that she hasn’t bothered to hide that she likes looking at him. However, here, right now, gripped by the urge to step forward and touch him, she’s off-balance and feeling starkly exposed.  
  
Licking her lips and rocking from ball to heel, Clarke clears her throat, chokes out a tiny laugh, and mumbles, "I guess I'll be seeing you for dinner in a bit?"

"Yep, I'll see you there." He steps to the barrel, hands at the edge of his towel, waiting for her to leave.  
  
"Um, yeah. Okay. Good. Soooo, um... yeah. I'm just gonna, uhh-" she gestures at the door, looks at her feet, and snaps her fingers,  
"clear out, okay? Yeah, uh, later." A hasty retreat and the door swings shut behind her.  
  
She pauses to catch her breath, whispers, “Get a fucking grip, Griffin.”  
  
**Time: 1613 HOURS**

Several hours later, after a nap and change into a gray linen halter dress and drapey ochre cardigan Elaine had left on her bed, Clarke sits alone in the communal eating area, enjoying a rich fish stew and salt-water beer. The amenities Floukru has managed to establish are impressive, considering the way other Grounders live, and Clarke consistently marvels at each new thing Luna and her clan show her. The dining hall is built of the same corrugated steel as everywhere else on the rig, mottled in rust red and saline patina, and there are glittering ornamental chimes, carved decorations, roughly a dozen framed photos from before the bombs, and children’s joyful drawings hung throughout the room. Small brass lamps and candles bathe everything in flickering glow, and each sound, from the familial din of the other diners to the fluid toccata of waves below, makes this place feel like it’s from a different world entirely.  
  
Last time she’d come here tragedy followed, but Luna’s people grieved, moved on to the point where her request to meet and confer on the crisis had been accepted readily. Raven already repaired the radio, so she’ll be able to communicate her calculations and ideas for how to proceed. Kane and her mother are needed by their people. Subsequently, Clarke decided to send everyone other than Bellamy home to recuperate, gather supplies, and make repairs to Arkadia.  
  
“What’s for dinner?” Speak of the devil.  
  
Clarke covers her mouth, attempting to swallow an unwieldy spoonful. Bellamy sits in the adjacent chair and waits patiently for her to talk. He’s wearing a navy blue tee shirt and distressed brown jeans.  
  
“Stew,” she finally manages, “and beer, if you want it. Tasty, but I’ve had two and no buzz, so it’s pretty weak. They make it here, though, which is cool.”  
  
Bellamy raises an eyebrow and leans close. “Are you trying to get drunk?” He’s more confident than she’s seen him in ages.  
  
“Nah, but I’m adventurous and an autodidact. There’s shit to know, experiments to conduct, boredom to conquer. That kind of thing.” At some point since he joined her, Clarke leaned towards him as well, her tone becoming slightly flirtatious. As far as she can tell, it’s not deliberate.  
  
“And apparently a bit of a hedonist, when the opportunity strikes,” he teases. Bellamy ruffles his hair then knocks absently on the table. “Okay, I’m gonna grab some stew. You want anything? Some wine, Dionysus?”  
  
“Nope, no wine. These good people don’t need to see me table dance. A cup of water would be nice, though.”  
  
He snaps his fingers the way she had in the bathroom. “Coming right up.”

 **Time: 1648 HOURS**  
  
Hollow _thunk_ s of footfall cut through their companionable silence as Clarke and Bellamy wind around the outer catwalks to the main deck. After dinner he’d asked her if she wants to take a walk and she’s glad she’d accepted the offer. Twilight is slowly bearing down on the horizon, and it's a privilege to see the setting sun banded by mingling streaks of pinks, golds, and purples, without hills or trees in the way.  
  
"This is so beautiful."  
  
"Mmm, I figured it would be." Bellamy intones next to her. "Glad we caught it in time."  
  
Clarke chuckles softly. "So this is what you wanted to see? I never took you for a 'Sunset' kind of guy."  
  
His face is a study in shadows; such sad eyes. "Ya learn something new everyday."  
  
"Hey, are you okay? You seemed like you were in a good mood earlier."  
  
Bellamy walks towards the deck's edge and plops down about a meter from the precipice. Clarke follows suit. "I'm in a better mood than I have been." He gives a smile to match the waxing crescent fading in above. "I'm glad we made up."  
  
"Me, too."  
  
They sit and watch in silence until the sun extinguishes beneath the sea. A sharp breeze chills her arms and shoulders despite the cardigan. Fitful surf swipes and rails against the rig, frothing white, ripping apart that sullen blackness cloned from sky to sea. "I didn't think this is what the ocean would smell like."  
  
Bellamy smiles at this statement. "What did you think it would smell like?"  
  
"Well, I'd heard that it was salty, which it is, and really fishy, which it isn’t, but there's a weird musk to it that I hadn't expected-- and maybe ozone after a thunderstorm. I like it." She bites the corner of her lip, an odd shyness seeping into recently-formed fractures in her confidence. "It’s getting chilly out here. What do you want to do now?"  
  
Leaning back onto his palms, Bellamy cocks his head in thought. Humming, he taps his fingers on the metal plating under them, then turns to meet her gaze. "Do you want to hang?"  
  
This isn't something she and Bellamy have ever really done. In fact, she can't think of an instance when she'd truly had a chance to just relax and sit around since The Ark, other than when she and Finn hooked up. Though it would be impossible to relax completely, given the work they all have ahead of them, chilling will be easier with Bellamy there. Everything is easier with Bellamy there. "Sure," she says, "my room or yours? There's a stack of interesting books in mine. We can read to each other."  
  
"That'd be nice. It's been too damn long since I've had a chance to read." His face darkens for a moment, but he pats her knee lightly, gets to his feet, and pulls her up. "Lead the way."

 **Time: HOURS 1702**  
  
"This is bigger than my room. I'm very upset." Bellamy smirks. Clarke can't help but laugh.  
  
"Sarcastic ass." She pokes his bicep with her index finger, choosing to ignore the jolt she feels whenever she’s touches him recently. Her quarters are pretty nice, with a piebald quilt of midnight black and silvery sable furs draped over a wide-ish single bed, capped by two plush down pillows. The books are piled against the opposite wall, stacked on a weathered wooden dresser which is coated in crackling yellow paint etched by time with intricate webs of negative space. A rickety gunmetal desk sulks perpendicular to the bed, with a stained, white plastic swivel chair nestled in the opening underneath.  
  
"Where should I sit?" Bellamy watches her, benignly, warmly, clearly trying to make things feel as casual as possible. However, she can see that he’s self-conscious.  
  
"Let’s just both sit on the bed. It looks more inviting than that tragic chair." Her comfort with him has grown exponentially, and it seems silly to pretend they don’t like to be near one another.  
  
He swallows nervously, jaw ticking. "Okay, sure. That sounds fine. No reason for either of us to be uncomfortable." He kicks off his shoes and lines them next to the door. Clarke removes hers as well, then crosses to the dresser to search through the books. The dust covers are a little warped, but the pages themselves are all intact, if a little shriveled.  
  
"Which would you like? There's a decent array.”  
  
"Oh, I don't know." He hauls himself onto the bed and slides over towards the wall, leaving enough space on the other side for Clarke to fit comfortably. "What looks good to you?."  
  
"Okay. There are a few horror novels--"  
  
Bellamy cuts her off. "I think I've had enough horror. What else you got?"  
  
Looking over her shoulder, Clarke presses her lips together. He's got a point. Shuffling through the stack, she finds a few options. "Well, here's one called _Who Moved My Cheese?_ , but I think I'm going to give that a pass on principle because the name is super-dumb."  
  
Bellamy hums affirmatively. "Good call. What else?"  
  
"This one is called _The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy_. Eh, that's got space travel, though. Not sure I'm feeling that."  
  
"Yeah, I'm pretty over space shit."  
  
"Oh!" Clarke's eyes light up. "My great-grandfather loved this book!" She walks over and hands it to Bellamy.  
  
Appraising the cover, he reads out, “ _A Voyage Long And Strange_?”  
  
"Yeah, it's about the colonization of America by Western Europeans. Like who did what, how the natives were affected, and how the different European nations vied for power. It's non-fiction, but it sounds interesting and he always said that it reads like a novel. You like history, right?" Clarke's eyes are bright and a timorous bit of youth shines through.  
  
"Absolutely. Let's go with this one."

  
**Time: 1950 HOURS**

They read in turns, making jokes and playfully ribbing each other between passages. Clarke enjoys laughing freely, even if she’s still anxious about everything ahead of them. Bellamy is sweet and snarky but, as always, he doesn’t laugh. She makes it a goal to make him laugh, at least once.  
  
There doesn't appear to be heating on the rig-- at least not anything noticeable-- so they had gradually drifted towards one another over the past couple of hours, hoping to warm up without getting under the covers or Bellamy having to leave for his own room. It's not that late and they're enjoying themselves.  
  
After a while Clarke scoots and lies down facing him, snuggling her head into her pillow. "It's so nice to have a comfortable place to sleep every once in a while."  
  
"You're not wrong." He reaches over her to set the book on the desk, then lies down facing her as well. They look at one another for a few moments, mirroring placid smiles. “What was it like in Polis? What did you do to pass free time?”  
  
“Drew, mostly-”  
  
“Who’s Drew?” He grins. She sticks her tongue out.  
  
“Art, then.”  
  
“Who’s Ar-”  
  
“Ass.” She pokes him in the stomach and discovers that he’s extremely ticklish.  
  
“Whose-”  
  
“Oh my god, I’m gonna kill you.” Reaching over, she spiders her fingers over his abs, setting aside how enticing they feel in favor of justice.  
  
Doubling over, breathless, he scrabbles at her hands and catches her wrists. His thumbs sweep softly over the skin underneath; a profound intake of air wracks them both. “You wouldn’t be the first to try.”  
  
She gets her bearings after a moment. “Umm, well,” she begins, “there was the political aspect, of course. A lot of posturing and caucusing and strategizing. I honestly didn’t get much free time. Saw Roan fight Lexa. That was wild.”  
  
Bellamy tenses and Clarke realizes she just mentioned his two least favorite people in the same sentence. He unclenches a moment later, nods for her to continue.  
  
“During the fight she killed the Queen of Azgeda. That’s how we had her body when-” A channel of cold rushes through her. It’s possible he doesn’t want to talk about their confrontation in Arkadia.  
  
Bellamy blinks slowly, smiles understandingly-- rough fingers extending out to sweep a lock of hair from her forehead. The heel of his hand cradles her jaw and his index finger lingers in the hollow beneath her ear. A flash of white flame: the ice in her veins sublimates. “It’s okay, Clarke. We can talk about it.” He removes his hand, and with it a bit of what makes her.  
  
“The fight?”  
  
“The fight.”  
  
“I tased you.”  
  
“I deserved it. I cuffed you. I’m so sorry for that.”  
  
“I get why you did it. It was shitty, but I get it. And, if I’m being honest, I might’ve done the same.” She looks down at her hands and finds her fingers twiddling unconsciously. “But I wouldn’t have had to. I know that. If I’d asked you to stay, you would’ve. And if you had really intended to go, I’d have found a way to guilt you into staying. And I’m so sorry for that.”  
  
“Hey,” Bellamy’s voice pleads for her to look at him. She does. “It’s okay. You’re okay.” They’re in orbit now, tethered, moored invisibly, inexorably. “I get it.”  
  
“It hurt a lot when you cuffed me. Not physically, of course. But the way you touched me before, it made me want to come home so much. I missed you. I needed you. I needed to make things right, between our people and Polis; between you and me. The way you touched me...” She sighs. ”Then you cuffed me, and honestly, I wasn’t mad at you because your arguments had merit. You were afraid for me. Things were falling to shit in Arkadia, Polis was a mess and, as much as I claimed to need you, you needed me and I’d been ignoring that since Mount Weather.”  
  
The mattress depresses under his weight as he sits up, cross-legged and facing her. “Hey, sit up for a second.” She complies. “Clarke, I’m glad that you escaped. Honestly. It’s a relief that you tased me, as fucked up as that sounds. Pike had promised he wouldn’t hurt our people, but that wasn’t true. He might have...” Eyes hard and weary, he cracks his knuckles and continues, “If it makes you feel any better, I pissed myself. ” Flushing with embarrassment, he scratches behind his ear and exhales something which sounds like it wants to be a laugh when it grows up.  
  
Clarke barely suppresses a snort. “Really?!”  
  
“Oh yeah. I had to report to Pike with pee running down my leg. Seriously.”  
  
“You know, I can’t be embarrassed for you because you’re so effortlessly hot all the time that the scales need balancing on occasion.”  
  
Bellamy rolls his eyes, head lolling back dramatically before coming to rest frontward, one eyebrow raised. “You’re one to talk.”  
  
Confusedly, innocently, “What?”  
  
He quirks his mouth to the side in an incredulous half-smile. “You’re kidding, right? Are we doing this?”  
  
“Doing what?”  
  
“You know what. You wanna go there?”  
  
Clarke huffs, irritated, with her chest high and arms crossed. “Where? What are you talking about?”  
  
“Jesus, Clarke. That! What you’re doing right now.”  
  
“Being annoyed at you is sexy?”  
  
“No, Princess. Well, sometimes, but it’s-” Bellamy breathes deeply, exhaling a sigh laced with resignation. “You! Your-.”  
  
Clarke’s eyes widen. “My what?”  
  
“You’re going to make me say it?”  
  
She smirks because she just figured out what he’s referring to. Clarke hugs herself tighter, in a way which just happens to accentuate her chest even more. “I honestly have no clue what you’re talking about.”  
  
In annoyance or embarrassment, she’s not sure which, Bellamy turns his face to the side, grumbling. Out of his periphery, he looks her over. “Your rack, breasts, whatever the hell you call them. You, there, in that empire dress, and your fucking perfect breasts and beautiful skin. Not to mention your curves, face, neck, arms, hair-- you get the picture.” Looking at her dead on now, he shakes his head. “You’re blisteringly hot, Clarke. Don’t be obtuse.”  
  
She’s not displeased with any of what he said, however, “I thought you didn’t find me attractive. Anyone in the camp really, other than Finn. And how do you know what an empire dress is?”  
  
Chewing his lip, he shakes his head again, harder this time. “You can’t be serious. I’m surprised you never noticed, but there were guys hanging out by the fire singing songs they’d made up about how they’d be happy to suffocate, as long as if it were in your cleavage.”  
  
Chuckling, Clarke punches his arm softly. “No fucking way. That’s not true!”  
  
“Oh,” he nods, “it definitely is. They’d stop when they knew I was around, but Raven caught them and told them to 'shut the fuck up and stop being gross".  
  
“I'll have to thank her. Not sure how I’d have handled their songs on top of everything else.”  
  
He clears his throat, “But, yeah, people find you very hot.”  
  
Clarke looks sideways and down to investigate a loose thread in the quilt. “Well, I guess I always assumed you don’t find me attractive.” Bellamy’s foot prods her knee. She tilts her chin, catches his eye shyly through her lashes.  
  
“God, Clarke. Even that. Right there. You somehow smile and pout at the same time, and damnit, your eyes. Anyone who sees you gets knocked on their ass.”  
  
“Feeling pretty ballsy tonight, Blake?” She’s unsure where she wants to take this whole flirting gambit, but it’s certainly more fun than she’s had in forever. Same for him, it seems.  
  
“Yep.”  
  
“I’ve only ever seen you check me out a couple times.”  
  
“Okay well, to answer your earlier question, my mother was a seamstress, and her family had been in the tailoring business since before the bombs. That’s how I know what an empire dress is.” Clarke nods in dawning comprehension. ”And my mother raised me to respect peoples’ bodies and personal space, made sure I knew that we all deserve to be appreciated for our character, and never made uncomfortable just because I want to look. So I try not to be a creep, but sometimes I slip.”  
  
Something occurs to her: “Have I ever made you uncomfortable, Bellamy? I’m sure you’ve noticed that I check you out. You’re nice to look at, to be honest.”  
  
“No, you’ve never made me uncomfortable.” He blushes faintly. Something wants loose in her chest.

“Well, I’m impressed that you have so much self-control, with all the attractive women, er, people?”  
  
He grins broadly, “Are you asking if I’m into guys, too?”  
  
Clarke is immediately embarrassed, tinted near completely red in abased warmth. A drafty porthole window nearby cools her skin and allows the pale moonlight to bleach out her shame. “Shit, you know, it’s not really any of my business. I’m really sorry.”  
  
Bellamy clasps her kneecap and rubs assuring spirals into the side. “You’re fine, Clarke. And yes.”  
  
Through a conspiratorial smile, she whispers, “Have you hooked up with any the guys in The Hundred?” Curiosity and an potent rush of excitement hold Clarke captive, desperate to know the answer.  
  
Eyes closed, sheepishly, he confides, “When all the wristbands got fried, Miller and I threw down a few times that night. He was sad that he wouldn’t see Bryan again.”  
  
Clarke’s laugh is wry and slightly bitter, “Yeah, that’s how Finn and I happened. Any of the other guys?”

“A dude I don’t think you knew much went down on me four or five times. His name was Lewis, but I stopped it because of what happened to Roma.” His face falls slightly, but Clarke puts her hand over his, smiling softly.  
  
“That was an accident, Bell.”  
  
Visibly bolstered, he returns her smile.  
  
She counts out on her other hand: “So, there’s Miller, Lewis, Roma, and her friend Astrid. That’s impressive.”  
  
Bellamy scrunches his face. “Welllll...”  
  
“Oh? Someone else?” Clarke nods encouragingly. She’s dying to know.  
  
“Raven.”  
  
Now she’s just dying. A sharp laugh bursts from her lungs. “Wow! I’m sorry, I’m just surprised. When was this?” She doesn’t need the moonlight to drain her coloring this time.  
  
Bellamy hums thoughtfully, testing different answers against his teeth. “Ummm-- it was after she and Finn broke up. About a day-and-a-half.” He watches her in earnest concern. “Is that weird to hear?”  
  
Clarke processes, cocks her head, focuses on his gentle touch. Does it bother me? She’s not really certain. Is it guilt about Finn loving her and her role in their breakup? Is it that she’s so close with both of Bell and Raven that she wonders why she never knew? Does it bug her that it’s forever part of Bellamy’s bond with Raven? Or maybe because she could see them together? Clarke has never considered herself a jealous person. She has no right to feel jealous, and she’s having trouble handling that the two of them having sex makes her uncomfortable.  
  
“No, it’s not weird, I guess. Raven’s a babe and I get why you’d want to hook up with her. Uh, well, I guess I shouldn’t assume it was a, um, hookup. Like, it’s not my place to ask if it’s happened more than once, or if you’ve dated, or, you know, anything like that.” A tiny snag in her sweater catches her eye and she pulls the fabric close to her face to inspect. “Or how long it would have gone on for. Like, I totally get it. I- yeah- I get it.”  
  
“Clarke.” Catching her eye, Bellamy gives her knee a reassuring squeeze. “She came to me, irritated because she thought you and Finn were off somewhere fucking. I pretty much said that I didn’t want to get involved in the drama, that she needed to move on. She said she wanted to be with someone other than Finn, since she hadn’t been. She stripped off and, just like in any other situation, I did my best not to look at her body while I explained that I wasn’t that guy who was going to convince her she was just upset and not thinking. Then she kissed me, and I’m not going to lie: it was really good.”  
  
A prickly knot wraps Clarke tightly, eliciting a pained, quiet groan from her throat. She’s not certain if he noticed, since he continues immediately, “Thing is, I was pissed at Finn. And I think I was trying to hurt him, same as Raven was. We were really stupid and it was just the once.”  
  
Clarke ventures, nervously, “But it was good?”  
  
“Yeah, it was amazing sex. But she bolted the moment it was over. I asked if it’d helped. She’d said no. And, honestly, it’d ended up making me feel worse.”  
  
Suddenly, he spins on his sits bones, swinging his feet to the floor and hopping up. “I’m heading to the bathroom, then I need to go to my room-”  
  
Clarke can’t muster enough control to hide her disappointment. “Oh, okay. Goodnight.”  
  
He bends to meet her eyes, lifts her chin with a crooked index finger. “I’ll be right back. I just need to get something. And maybe you should take a bathroom break, too, just so we don’t have to interrupt our sleepover. I never got to have one as a kid, so let’s say ‘fuck it’ and be childish for a bit.”

**TIME: 2031 HOURS**

After hitting the bathroom, Clarke returns to her room, absently wandering and touching the furniture. Everything in here survived a cataclysm: any time she remembers this about material objects on Earth it blows her mind. And now she’s here, in a space where she feels safer and more comfortable than she’s ever felt anywhere, surrounded by the personal effects of strangers long dead, and replete in the companionship and affection of the person who transmutes any unfamiliar thing she encounters into one she can’t imagine a time not knowing. Somewhere along the line, he became her place, and for the first time in months, the unshakable grip of homesickness has released her.  
  
A moment later, real-life Bellamy crashes awkwardly into both her room and thoughts. He keeps stumbling, laden with his pillows and quilt, and dragging his own desk chair behind him. He’s moored the thing to his sleeping pants with the waist string and it keeps ramming him in his heels. “Fuck!” Its resentful smack to the back of his knee hobbles him and he nearly falls. “A little help, please?”  
  
Clarke’s hearty laughter bounces off the walls, but she obliges, rushing over to take the blanket and pillows. “What the shit do you need the chair for?!” Aggressively red marks form where the wheels had hit him.  
  
He unties the chair, gives it the finger, then bends to massage the back of his leg. “Blanket fort,” he grunts.  
  
“Good man.” Clarke sweeps past him to grab the chair and move it into position opposite the desk. While she works at laying her blanket on the floor, Bellamy splits the stacks of books into two and uses them as makeshift anchors holding one side of his blanket to the bed after she clamps an end into the desk drawers and drapes the rest over the two chairs. Their shoes become stops to keep the casters from rolling.  
  
“You have some impressive blanket fort skills.” He grabs her pillows and tosses them with his into their clubhouse.  
  
Sighing heavily, “Yeah. Wells and I used to make them all the time when we were little. This is nothing compared to the palaces we used to build.” She gives herself a little hug. “I miss him.”  
  
“I know you do.” Bellamy’s tone soft, he steps towards her and runs his palms comfortingly up and down her upper arms. “I was a dick to him. He was an amazing guy and I wish I’d known him better.”  
  
“He _was_ amazing. And you were _such_ a dick.”  
  
Bellamy squeezes tenderly, then strides over to a basket filled with pouches of dried fruit on the yellow dresser, pawing through its contents. “Oh yeah,” he agrees, ”a record-weight bag of dicks.” Holding out a small pouch from the basket, “Hey, do you want dried apricots or-” he produces another, “these look like yellow raisins, I think?”  
  
“Oh!” He jumps a bit at Clarke’s outburst, “Elaine left a couple of apples for us.”  
  
Pouches forgotten, he exclaims, “Really?! I haven’t had an apple in so long. Fuck, I love apples.”  
  
“I know. That’s why I wanted them to be a surprise, but I got caught up in hanging out and almost forgot.” Slipping between Bellamy and the dresser, she nudges him with her shoulder so he’ll move. “Scoot, please.” He walks away to lean against the door, arms crossed in amusement. From the top drawer, her hands emerge grasping two perfect, pinkish-red apples.  
  
Astonished, he whispers, “Where the hell did they get them?”  
  
Clarke smirks at him. “What’s the matter, Snow White? Think they’re poisoned?”  
  
“Yup, that’s definitely why I asked. You’re so astute.”  
  
She holds them eye level. “I’d guess they made a supply run when they picked us up. And the water here is cold enough that they could keep apples preserved for a while submerged in sealed barrels.” Clarke sniffs one appreciatively. “No matter where they get them, I’m not about to lick a gift horse in the mouth.”  
  
Bellamy squints at her. “ _Lick_ a gift horse in the mouth?”  
  
“Yeah,” she explains, “it’s an old saying.”  
  
“I know the saying, but it’s not ‘lick a gift horse’. It’s ‘look a gift horse’.” He’s watching her with so much affection that Clarke is having a hard time being annoyed.  
  
Still. “I’m pretty sure that it’s ‘lick’.”  
  
“Why the hell would someone lick a horse in the mouth?”  
  
“To see if it’s friendly, I guess? Why would someone randomly look in a horse’s mouth?”  
  
“To see if its _healthy_. The lesson is that it’s rude to accept a gift and then evaluate its quality right in front of the gifter. Please tell me you haven’t been frenching horses, Clarke.”  
  
“Wouldn’t licking it in the mouth be just as effective at telling if its healthy?”  
  
“You’re fucking with me. Seriously. You have to be fucking with me.”  
  
“I’ve always heard it as ‘lick’.” Clarke’s too far into the debate to give up now, even though she realizes he’s correct.  
  
“How can you be such a genius in everything else, and so dumb about this? You must be fucking with me.”  
  
Clarke’s eyes alight with mischief. “I don’t know, but keep this up and you won’t be fucking anyone after I whip this apple at your dick.”  
  
He scoffs, “Oh really, now?”  
  
She turns and half-heartedly winds up for the pitch. “You’re about to get reverse ‘William Tell-ed’.”  
  
“So, ‘William Told’?”  
  
“Just get in the damn fort.” He winks and disappears beneath the blanket.

Clarke passes the apples to him before crawling in. It’s pleasantly dim and the air is already spiked with Bellamy’s warmth. He’s propped their pillows along the wall opposite her bed and after she settles in he hands over an apple.  
  
“Fuck, I love these things.” Its skin breaks under his teeth, bleeding thick, sweet juice from the corners of his mouth. He wipes it away with the back of his hand and attacks his apple again.  
  
“Slow down, you’ll choke.” Clarke bites into hers tentatively, not wanting to get any of the liquid on her borrowed clothes.  
  
He shrugs, apple nearly gone. “You’re a medical professional. You can give me the Heimlich.”  
  
“Then you wouldn’t learn your lesson.” She laughs, burying her toes into the smooth furs beneath her, and enjoying this moment of unadulterated pleasure.  
  
Bellamy leans towards her, close enough for her to taste the sweetness on his breath, “You’d never let me die.” The gravel in his voice skips ripples down her throat and shoulders to converge over her heart.  
  
Thickly, she barely whispers, “No. I wouldn’t.”  
  
“Oh, I have an idea.” In a flash, he exits their fort. From somewhere in the room, she hears, “Hey, is there any paper in here?”  
  
“I’m not sure if they have any, but there’s some in my bag. And pencils.” A scrape of canvas, a rattle; he’s crouched just outside the flap.  
  
Holding out a couple colored pencils and her sketch pad, “Are these okay to use?”  
  
“Sure.” She reaches for the pencils and pad. His smile is dazzling; the one she’s only ever seen a few times. His hair is clean, shining with beleaguered lamplight cresting gold on dark curling waves: Clarke wants to dip her fingers in.  
  
He crawls in and settles facing her, back against the bed. His legs stretched along hers; they touch at the sides. “Say, hand me the pencils and a piece of paper, please.”  
  
Clarke flips through to a blank page, tears it out, and hands it over. “What are you doing?”  
  
He folds the end of it to shape it from a rectangle into a square, then tears off the extra piece, handing that back. “Well, if this is a real sleepover, we need to do real sleepover stuff.” He begins folding it into shapes and writing in different sections.  
  
She clucks her tongue thoughtfully. “Hmm, that’s true. No freezing each others’ bras-”  
  
“I left my good one at home, anyway.”  
  
“Me, too.” Clarke continues, “We’re short on people to play _Light As A Feather, Stiff As A Board_ , and we can’t give each other facials.”  
  
Without looking up, he mumbles, “Depends on what kind of facial we’re talking.”  
  
“There’s only the one kind, I thought. Just different ingredients.”  
  
Bellamy clears his throat, “Yes. Only one kind.”  
  
A few minutes pass before he sets aside the pencils and sits forward, patting her shin so she’ll cross her legs and sit up straight, too.  
  
“What’d you make? It’s hard to see in here.”  
  
“True.” Bellamy stretches sideways and searches the desk drawers, retrieving an electric lantern from the bottom one. It comes to life at his touch, and he slides it under the desk so it’s not in the way.  
  
Clarke notices something, chuckles, “Are your pants on backward?” Before he sits back down, she gives the tie a playful tug.  
  
“Yeah, I had to use them to get the chair here. Seemed easier to put them on backward.” He bats her hand away and plops back down. “Stop looking at my ass.” His voice is warm, teasing, rough, and it shakes her.  
  
“Bellamy Blake, everyone looks at your ass.”  
  
“That so?”  
  
“That’s so.” In the spaces between and the things they do, they pull. Always. Touching or no, they pull.  
  
“Soooo- what’d you make?”  
  
“A Cootie Catcher.” He presents an origami cone, made up of multiple folds and winged flaps jutting out and downward from the top; there are colors and numbers written on the inside.  
  
Clarke remembers them from grade school. “I thought they were called ‘Fortune Tellers’?”  
  
Bellamy tips the brim of an invisible hat and affects the Southern accent she’s heard from the old westerns her dad liked. “Wayell, I dunnoe abow yoo hah-falootin’ Alephuh mayurrs, buh wee Sayvunteen-Bee brahncoes cawelled theez heeur whutsits ‘Cootie Catchers’.”  
  
Clarke laughs so hard she nearly tips over. “That was good. Let’s play.”  
  
“Dayuhm stray.” He slips his fingers into the flaps underneath and holds out the catcher for her to inspect. “Okay. Pick a color.”  
  
“Periwinkle!”  
  
“Try again. One of the colors written in the center.”  
  
“Oh, okay. Uhhh- blue!”  
  
“Periwinkle it is.” Clarke finds his grin refreshing. “P-E-R-I-W-I-N-K-L-E.” With each letter he alternates opening and closing different sections of the Catcher. “Now pick a number.”  
  
“Four.”  
  
“Okay, interesting choice. Also, I think I did this in backwards order, so we’re just going to give no fucks and do this however we want. Here we go: One-Two-Fifteen-Seventy.” He angles the center towards her. “Pick two.”  
  
“Yeah, we’re definitely doing this wrong. Gimme that one first.” She picks the flap next to his right thumb.  
  
“Ooookay- what’s the Princess won? Isn’t this your lucky day, madam? It says you’re going to marry a fruit bat and...” she indicates the one closest to her right side, “... live in a urinal! That’s right, ladies and gentlemen!” (Clarke cups her hands around her mouth and mimics the sound of an excited audience) “This lovely woman and her Fruit Bat-rothed (woooooo) will be whisked away to live in their new (yeahhhhh), glamorous (hell yeahhhh), beautifully appointed urinal!”  
  
Applauding, she exclaims, “That’s amazing! I never win anything!”  
  
He tosses the catcher to her. “My turn.”  
  
“Am I actually doing it, or do you just want to pick two?”  
  
“I’m going to close my eyes and pick them. Let chaos and spacial awareness determine my fate.” He closes his eyes and holds out his hand.  
  
Spreading the catcher open aloft in the area between them, Clarke says, “Ready.”  
  
He stretches his index finger forward, twirling it in broad curlicues. After a few misplaced jabs at her arms and knees, it lands on a flap.  
  
“Spacial awareness, huh?” He blindly reaches out to high-five her and bumps his hand into her forehead; she snickers. “That’s one. What’s next?”  
  
“Uhhhh- this one!” His pointer finger finds his next choice.  
  
“Okay! Drumroll, please!” He slaps his hands against his legs in a quick rhythm. “It says that you’re going to- huh.”  
  
“What?” His eyes are whittled narrow with suspicion.  
  
“It says that you’re going to marry the Princess and live in a magical castle.”  
  
He swallows, jaw ticking once more. “Huh. They don’t usually match up like that.” Shrugging, “Well, anecdotally, I’ve heard that magical castles are pretty neat-- and you’re the Princess, so that doesn’t sound so bad, seeing how well we’ve been getting along.”  
  
Clarke tips her head and smiles sweetly. “Yeah, that’d be okay, maybe. But a magical castle seems awfully large for two people.”  
  
“Well, we’ve got the rest of the Arkadians, plus our twelve kids.”  
  
“ _Twelve_ _?_ ”  
  
“Twelve.”  
  
“My poor pelvis.”  
  
“Your poor _twelvis_.”  
  
“I’m not sure I can come up with that many names.”  
  
He pats her knee. “Don’t worry, I’ve got this. We just name them after combinations of our names. So- we’d have ‘Bellarke’, ‘Claramy’, ‘Grike’-”  
  
“Oh, that one’ll hate us.”  
  
“‘Grifflake’, ‘Clarb’-”  
  
“That one’ll murder us in our sleep.”  
  
“’Clarkell’, ‘Bellclar’-- how many is that?”  
  
“Seven.”  
  
“Fuck. Ummm-- for fuck’s sake. Let’s just let the rest name themselves. I’d be down for a kid named ‘Cyborg’ or ‘Puppy Monster’.”  
  
“Your reasoning is sound. So, what’s next? Want to try some _Truth or Dare_?”  
  
“Sounds good, but one sec.” Bellamy scrambles out into the room, then returns with the basket of dried fruits. “Which do you want? We’ve got the aforementioned apricots and raisins, and then the other pouches, which we’ll call _Mystery Snacks_.”  
  
“Oooh, good name. You know how much I like a mystery-”  
  
He nods emphatically, “I do, indeed.”  
  
“-so, I’m going to go for,” she closes her eyes and rummages through the basket, “this one! Now grab one for yourself and we’ll open them at the same time.”  
  
Bellamy mixes the two pouches he’s holding back in with the others before pulling his _Mystery Snack_ out from the bottom of the basket. “Okay, Princess. On three. One- two- three!” They both untie the pouch strings and peer inside.  
  
Clarke frowns. “Apple chips? Damnit. What did you get?”  
  
Bellamy sniffs. “Cranberries. Ewww.”  
  
“You wanna trade?”  
  
“I really do. Thanks.” They toss their pouches to each other simultaneously. Bellamy wastes no time stuffing dehydrated apple into his mouth.  
  
Incredulously, “Bell, you just had a whole apple.”  
  
He’s chewed and swallowed his first mouthful. “You say that like it’s supposed to mean something.” Clarke enjoys him like this: so youthful, cherishing his treat. “So, we doing this _Truth or Dare_ thing? How does it work?”  
  
Clarke is mildly surprised that he doesn’t know how to play, then remembers what he’d said about never getting to do a sleepover. She munches on her cranberries while explaining. “Okay, for example: during a round, I would ask you if you wanted ‘Truth’ or ‘Dare’. You’d choose. You either have to answer any question I put forth, or you have to do any dare I give. If you chicken out on one, you can opt to do the other.” She looks up to see that he’s sucking the end of one of his fingers before stirring it into the inside of the pouch to gather any remaining bits of apple. Clarke whimpers softly, but knows, for sure, he didn’t hear it because it’s the kind of thing anyone would react to. Even so, she feigns a cough and excuses herself to cover her tracks. “Do you want to go first, or should I?”  
  
“Like, do I want to be the asker or the answerer?” Bellamy lays the empty pouch on top of the basket. “I’ll be the answerer.”  
  
Clarke nods and shifts closer so that the fronts of their shins almost touch. He gestures down to their crossed legs, “May I?”  
  
“Sure.”  
  
He slides his fingers behind her knees and pulls her forward so that their feet are entangled, respective knees and shins pressed together. “My feet are getting cold, seems like it’s getting chilly.”  
  
In this moment, Clarke doesn’t agree. She’s tingly, but definitely not cold. “What’s it gonna be, pal? Truth or Dare?”  
  
“Truth.”  
  
“Alright, then.” Clarke interlocks her fingers and stretches her arms above her head; she hears him inhale sharply. “How is it you’ve seen Old Western Films? I know you didn’t learn that accent from a book, and Ark citizens from your section didn’t have access to movies very often.” She ends her stretch, lowering arms and face to see an odd look in his eyes, and regrets her question immediately.  
  
Bellamy registers her concern and quickly clarifies, “Clarke, you haven’t upset me. It’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you for a long time-- mostly because I want you to know me, but also because you’re one of the few people who’ll never judge me.” He reaches out his hand; Clarke takes it and squeezes.  
  
Shakily, he begins, “Yeah, we were in 17-B, and rations were definitely tight because we had O and couldn’t tell anyone. Mainly, my mom went without meals, but then she’d be too weak to take mending orders, so we’d take turns being hungry. Then one day she came home with enough rations to feed the three of us, enough for more than a month, even. I think I was eight, at the time.” Idly, he thumbs at the hem of her sleeve.

“I thought she was stealing-- begged her to stop because she’d get floated. I loved my mom and I was already raising O practically by myself because of her workload and how weak she’d be; I couldn’t deal with the idea of her dying and me being alone, left to keep our secret, keep my sister safe.  
  
“I couldn’t figure out how she always knew when our apartment would be inspected, and why she’d disappear in the evening sometimes, stay out really late or not come home until the middle of the next day.” Bellamy’s eyes are murky and wet. He looks down at their entwined fingers, touches his free hand to the underside of her forearm, traces the tensile lines of delicate bone and tendon, massages the soft skin along the sides, and carefully avoids where Raven had bitten her last week. Clarke understands: as long as they’re touching, she can’t float away like his mother; at least, not without taking him with her.  
  
“On my eleventh birthday she came home in a rush. Told me she’d be away for a few days, brought us chalk candy and an expensive tablet screen and said it was attached to a media account, so O and I should watch some movies and enjoy ourselves. She’d be back in a few days, don’t open the door, don’t take any repair orders, just keep myself and my sister safe and quiet.” Clarke senses where this is going, and he was right, she feels no judgment, or pity, only admiration for how strong Bellamy has always been.  
  
“She returned about a week later with a fucking massive bag of rations. We’d spent the whole time watching movies, like she wanted. O was obsessed with the Westerns, so I learned how to do the accents to make her laugh when she was scared.” With his thumb, he reverently traces the lines in Clarke’s palm.

“It wasn’t until I was a few years older when I realized my mom was trading sex for extra food and the inspection schedule-- hell, she even got me into the Guard that way. I could tell she hated it. And I think she thought I hated her for it, but I didn’t.” A miserable sound rumbles through him and he trills tongue to shake off the notion. “It was hard to watch, and fortunately O was pretty oblivious, but my main concern was finding a way to help her. Being on the Guard was my way of shouldering some of that shit, so she wouldn’t have to screw those creeps anymore, but I fucked that up.” He’s strained by guilt, bowed and buckling.  
  
“Bellamy, look at me.” Clarke’s tone is assertive and tender. When he meets her gaze, she can see how ashamed he feels. “Look, I’m sure that I don’t understand everything, since I wasn’t there, but Octavia gave me a rundown of how she got caught and what happened with your mom.” She gently cups his jaw in her free hand. Distant thunder protests halfheartedly and a light rain starts tapping overhead. “The whole situation was so much more difficult than I could ever imagine handling at that age, but you did. You stuck by and didn’t judge your mother. You raised your sister! The three of you clearly loved and trusted one another more deeply than any family I’ve ever known. The lengths you’ve gone to for each other are staggering.”  
  
He sniffles, “But now O is in such a bad place. It’s my fault my mother is dead and it’s my fault O is so messed up and-”  
  
“That’s not true, Bell!” she interrupts, “You all made your own choices, and many of them came out poorly, but that’s not all on you. I think that it’s past due we cut ourselves some slack. Learn from our mistakes, work to rectify them, then move on from the guilt.” Clarke laughs mirthlessly. “Let’s be honest: neither of us has made anything better by hiding or running or martyring or letting our anger and fear override our better sense. So, let’s stop doing that. You and I can fix anything together. We can build lives for ourselves and our people, even in chaos and destruction, because we have each other.”  
  
Bellamy leans into her touch slightly, then pulls away to wipe his eyes. “Well, that was one helluva first round. You’re next.”  
  
Clarke is a little teary herself, but she laughs and claps her hands excitedly. “Yes, let’s do this.”  
  
“Alright, Princess. Truth or Da-?”  
  
“Dare!”  
  
“Woah, okay. That’s some enthusiasm.” He runs his tongue along the edge of his top teeth, glances up to the right in thought. “I dare you to stick your feet under the bed.”  
  
Clarke scrunches her nose and her mouth yanks almost completely to the side. “How do you know about that?”  
  
“I know things. What’s the matter, Griffin? Scared of monsters?” Bellamy teases his hand through the ends of her hair, making gurgling growls which vibrate through his fingers and commute up to her scalp.  
  
“No,” she pouts.  
  
Slyly, “I have my doubts about that.”  
  
“Okay, really. Who told you about this?” She genuinely wants to know, since he wasn’t close with Wells and now only her mom would know, but Clarke can’t imagine Bell and her mother sitting around shooting the shit over Clarke’s childhood fears.  
  
Bellamy lounges back and inspects his fingernails. “I’ll never reveal my sources. Are you gonna do it, or are you too chicken?”  
  
She glares cuttingly and slides until she’s sitting next to him, knees curled to chest. “Shush, you. I can do it.”  
  
“Okay, do it.”  
  
“I’m doing it.”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
The room outside of their fort is pretty cold, and if it weren’t for the fur blanket beneath them, she’d be freezing. The underside of the bed is as tundra-like as she’d thought it would be. A powerful shiver surges through her whole body.  
  
Eying her sideways, “See? It’s not that hard.” He winks. She blows a raspberry.  
  
“I know it’s dumb, but I’ve been weirded out by underneath my bed since I was little.”  
  
He nudges her elbow with his own. “That’s what makes it a good dare.”  
  
“Can I stop now? It’s cold and my legs are bare,” she states simply.  
  
“I’ve noticed.” His right index finger slips past the edge of her cardigan, then under the halter strap at her neck. His skin is hot and slightly abrasive. She feels a tug deep inside; catch and release. He takes back his hand. “You look really beautiful. Aren’t these straps uncomfortable, though?”  
  
Before tonight, she’s never heard Bellamy comment on a anyone’s physical appearance. It’s novel and kind of intoxicating to hear what he thinks about hers. “They feel fine. Do you think I should change out of this, though? I feel overdressed, at this point.” Clarke fiddles with the bodice, adjusts her cardigan, and finds herself playing with a lock of her hair. Hope that he’ll touch her again hijacks all conscious thought and she’s pissed at herself for feeling so self-conscious.  
  
“Only if you’re uncomfortable.” He places a hand on her forearm. “Are you?  
  
“No,” she breathes.  
  
“Then we can both enjoy how fucking gorgeous and comfortable you are. I’m not about to lick a gift horse in the mouth.”  
  
Clarke huffs, “Don’t make me throw something at you.”  
  
Bellamy’s sonorous ‘mmmm-hmmm’ strums her inner thighs. _Okay, Griffin. Sartorius, Rectus Femoris, Vastus Medialis, Vastus Lateralis, Vastus Intermedius..._ Clarke assesses that there isn’t much more ridiculous than trying to distract herself by listing the muscles of the thigh.  
  
“You sure you’re okay? Do you want to call it a night?” He caps his palm over her shoulder, thumb cradled in the hollow behind her clavicle.  
  
“No, I’m okay. I’m just, uh, thinking of ways to tell you off.” He rolls his eyes and she closes her own. _Deltoid, Pectoralis Major, Pectoralis Minor-- nope, don’t want to think about breasts, Bicep-- crap, don’t want to think about his biceps, Abdominals-- eh, fuck it. Time to bring out the big guns: toenail clippings, moldy food, hemhorragic fever..._ Now she can’t stop thinking about how he looked at her when they’d both recovered from the outbreak at the Dropship. It’s not working. Clarke takes a calming breath and pulls her feet out from under the bed while turning to sit in the same direction he is. She doesn’t feel like resisting her urge to flirt anymore, so she decides to just lean into it. “What’s my prize?”  
  
Bellamy cocks his head. “I don’t think that’s how this game works. You do the thing, then I do the thing. There are no prizes, unless you count schadenfreude.”  
  
Clarke hoods her eyes, alternates her gaze from his eyes to his mouth. Bellamy’s arms fall lank to his lap. He licks his lips, swallows; he’s trembling. He looks so confused. Abruptly, she announces, “My turn again. I pick Truth. Ask me what you’ve been wanting to ask me, Bell.” She scoots closer and hooks the ends of her fingers around his.  
  
“What do you mean?” He clears his throat.  
  
“You want to ask me how I felt about Lexa.”  
  
Eyes averted, he nods; his fingers and palm claim hers fully and interlock. Clarke hates having made him this anxious.  
  
Tentatively, Clarke begins. "She was intense, as you probably recall. And beautiful." She observes Bellamy's reaction before continuing.  
  
He stares at his feet, agrees, "Definitely."  
  
Clarke closes her eyes to conjure Lexa's image. “If I'm being honest with myself, I barely knew her as a person. And she seemed different, lighter and happier, in the City of Light, so I can’t even be sure of what I did know." Even though she can't see it, Bellamy nods. "She was somehow hopeful and cynical at the same time. All contradictions. She was clever and calculating-- an epically fierce and skilled warrior. I think I idealized her. She confused me, though. Made me feel worse for the things you and I had to do after she betrayed us. I wanted her, though.”  
  
Bellamy squeezes her hand, his eyes are soft and sad. “Did-” he stammers.  
  
“Did I love her?” Clarke supplies.  
  
“Yeah.” She can see he’s terrified.  
  
Clarke wants to be clear. “Yes, but it never could have lasted.”  
  
Bellamy’s shoulders relax a bit, but he’s visibly wary. ”It’s just-- you spent so much time staring at the Flame and I didn’t, I- I couldn’t understand. I want to, though.”  
  
“It’s hard to explain. Everything in Polis was so confusing. Honestly, I’d only ever felt worse about myself when I was on my own, wallowing in self-hatred. I couldn’t trust anyone there, and so much responsibility was placed on me to police everyone’s behavior. When Roan captured me, I was certain he was taking me to my death. He’d covered my head and taken me to Polis, forced me to my knees before Lexa. She wanted to have me bow to her, in order to prove her strength to the other clans; she kept me locked in my room for a week and finally insisted I talk to her. Told me how guilty I must feel, that I didn’t hate her, but myself.  
  
“And you came for me. It was terrifying because I couldn’t face you. And when I sent you away, I hurt you all over again. I thought I could help our people by staying and-- somewhere in the fray it happened. I developed feelings for her.” Bellamy is using the pad of his thumb to softly stroke along each of her cuticles in turn. “We had a powerful physical attraction,” she barrels on, “and were drawn to the warforged parts of each other. But I’m not like her, and I was trying to be. Just like you, I made bad choices for even worse reasons. I wanted to hide from our people, from you, so that I could try to make change without having to face the people I hurt and abandoned; a way to stop hating myself. I’m not sure if you know, but I was planning to come home with Octavia.”  
  
Bellamy’s eyes widen. “You mean before the blockade?”  
  
“Yeah. Lexa asked me to stay and I chose to leave. The thought of having any regrets or doubts ate at me, though, so she and I had sex right before it was time to head home. Fifteen minutes after, she was dead and I was locked in her room. I wasn’t able to escape until at least a day later. Roan and Titus helped.”  
  
“I’m so sorry, Clarke. That’s fucked up. ” Bellamy brings their intertwined hands to his chest. It feels nice and Clarke hums softly. He grouses, “I guess I’ll have to be a little nicer to Roan.”  
  
“That’s up to you.” I wouldn’t fault you for staying pissed at him, as long as you two can find a way to work together.  
  
Scratching behind his ear, Bellamy grouses, “I will if he will.”  
  
“Very magnanimous.”  
  
“Honestly, though, I’m so sorry.”

Clarke shakes her head, sprinkling tears on her lap and his shoulder. A bit sniffly, she reassures, “No, it’s okay. I wouldn’t have been happy there in the long-run.”

“What makes you think that?”  
  
“Being home with our friends. Home with you.” Bellamy smiles wanly. Clarke reciprocates. “It took a little time, but I adjusted to being together again, remembered what it felt like to be appreciated for who I am, not what I can offer politically or what I represent. When I’m with you all, I feel truly loved,” she tugs their hands away from his chest, brings them to her lips, softly kissing his middle knuckle, “in some cases unconditionally.” Leaning to the side, Clarke feels how warm Bellamy is. Everything in the world right now smells and tastes like him, and she’s a little overwhelmed.  
  
Bellamy rests his head on the top of hers and deposits a light kiss in her part. He exhales when Clarke leans against him. “What do you want to do now?”  
  
Clarke nuzzles her face against the sleeve of his tee shirt. “Do you want to make shadow puppets?”  
  
He moans joyfully and wraps his arm around her. “I thought you’d never ask.”

** Time: 2300 HOURS **

They’ve essentially exhausted every known animal and person and have moved on to completely random nonsense. Bellamy lays on his back and Clarke snuggles into the crook of Bellamy’s arm, draping her own arm over his middle.  
  
“Okay, what’s this?” Bellamy’s reach is long enough that he takes his turn without her having to move. He makes a circle with one hand and sets it on top of his flattened other one.  
  
“Oooh- ooh! I know this one!” Clarke taps her fingers on his chest. “It’s Arkadia!”  
  
He tsks and waggles a finger in the light, casting a silhouette to mock her failure. “You’re not very good at this. Good thing this isn’t a skill which is ever remotely useful, unless you’re entertaining a five-year-old, or me.” He strokes her upper back reassuringly.  
  
“Same difference," she gibes "So what was it?”  
  
Bellamy adopts a surprisingly good Received British accent. “Wasn’t it obvious, dear girl?”  
  
“Oh my god, you’re the worst.”  
  
He persists, “How dare you besmirch my considerable shadow puppetry prowess?”  
  
“Say it or you’re getting tickled until you wet yourself again.”  
  
"God's wounds, I'll not stand for this-”  
  
Clarke’s hand is poised, ready to tickle center mass.  
  
“Okay, okay!” She drops her arm and hooks her index finger onto the pocket of his pajama pants. “It was my sister’s first initial on ruled paper.”  
  
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Clarke pokes his belly button and he doubles up defensively, looking prepared to go full Armadillo if necessary. “That’s absurd, Bell! That has to be some of the most esoteric bullshit I’ve ever heard!” She grabs his shoulder and rolls him onto his back. “I’m not going to tickle you, nerd. It’s my turn now.”  
  
“Okay. Play through.” He pulls the edge of her cardigan and she settles into his elbow, face on his chest. “Don’t you need two hands?”  
  
“Nope. Just the one. Watch closely.” Clarke holds her arm in front of the lamp and gives the middle finger.  
  
“Hmmm, wow. That’s a tough one. I guess... _Indra’s_ first initial written on unruled paper!”  
  
Clarke laughs. “Nope.”  
  
“How ‘bout a pencil? You’d use it to write people’s first initials on both ruled and unruled paper.”  
  
“Oh, so close.”  
  
“A paralyzed man-eating lamprey?”  
  
“Nah.”  
  
“Oh, there’s a bottom part I didn’t see!” He taps on her fist. “So, that would be an upside-down  mushroom?”  
  
“Nope.”  
  
“A paralyzed man-eating lamprey snacking on a tackle box?”  
  
“Weak.”  
  
Bellamy sighs melodramatically. “Kane doing a handstand in a wooden crate? (“Weird”) A mallet? (“Uh-uh”) A coffee cup with a drinking straw? (“Who’s bad at this?") Claaaarke, this is so hard.”  
  
“Give up or you’ll be guessing until you die, Blake.”  
  
“Okay, you got me.” He rolls on his side to wrap his other arm around her; she plays with the dark, wild tendrils by his temple. “What are we doing now?” Clarke uses her nose to nudge his jaw high enough for her face rest against his neck.  
  
She steadies herself with a deep breath and ventures, “Want to tell me about Mount Weather?”  
  
She’d expected him to freak out when she finally asked about it, but he simply responds, “What do you want to know?”  
  
“Anything you feel comfortable telling me. You don’t have to tell me anything at all, if you don’t want to.”  
  
With his fingernails, he scratches soothingly over her shoulders and back, swirling aimless circles into her sweater. “I’m okay telling you anything, Clarke.”  
  
She trembles a bit and starts to play with the neck of his shirt. “Why don’t we start with how you got in?”  
  
Bellamy swallows and his adam’s apple moves against her cheek. “Everything was going to plan when we got into the tunnels, but when it came time for Lincoln to grab the vial of Red and run off to distract everyone else, he was too tempted and ended up taking a hit of the drug instead.”  
  
“That must have been really scary for both of you. I know he felt really awful, like he’d betrayed you.”  
  
His voice wobbles slightly. “Hey, uh...”  
  
Pulling away a bit, Clarke watches him. “What’s up?”  
  
It seems like he’s about to cry. “This is going to sound weird, but do you know how to play _Cat’s Cradle_?”  
  
Confused, head tilted, she bites her lip. “Yeah, why?”  
  
“It relaxes me. I really want to talk about what happened, but it might be easier if I can’t get so far into my own head while we do.”  
  
Clarke pats his arm and reaches out of their fort for one of her boots, unlacing them quickly. “Hopefully a shoelace will work. Did you play with Octavia?”  
  
He rises, stretching, and scoots to sit in front of her. “Yeah, she loved it. Our mom taught it to us, which makes sense since we had extra thread lying around; makes a pretty inexpensive toy.”  
  
“Sounds like your mom was very clever.” Clarke’s tongue pokes from the side of her mouth and her eyes cross a bit while she finishes removing the lace from her boot and ties the ends together.  
  
Finger hooked through the opposite end, Bellamy stretches the loop to inspect its length. “Yeah, this’ll work. And yeah, she was. We wanted to give Octavia some context, though, so we renamed the shapes. ‘Cat’s Cradle’ became ‘O’s Cubby’, ’Candles’ became ‘Needles’, etc.”  
  
“What did ‘Manger’ become?”  
  
“Uhhhhh-” He looks up in thought. “Med Bay, I think? She’d never been there, obviously, but knew it existed.” Bellamy claps and rubs his hands together. “Who taught you?”  
  
For the second time today, her memories run back to her grandmother. “My dad’s mom. Her name was, funnily enough, Anja, but with a J.  
  
Bellamy’s grimaces. “That’s a crazy coincidence.”  
  
“Right? Gran was Danish. My grandfather, too. I’m not sure about my mom’s family. She didn’t like to talk about them, and they were dead by the time I was born. Only thing I know is that her father was Jewish and very observant. Abigail is Hebrew for ‘Father’s Joy’, actually. Mom isn’t religious, but my dad told me that they sat shiva when Grandpa died.”  
  
“My mom didn’t talk about my father. She just said that he was Filipino. She was Irish. O’s dad was Greek, I think?” He shrugs. “Never knew either of them, in fact, some stuff she’d said made me think that my father had been floated.”  
  
“I’m sorry,” Clarke murmurs.  
  
“No, it’s okay.” Those sad eyes again.  
  
“Still, it sucks.”  
  
“I guess.” He pokes the instep of her foot. “Who’s got first?”  
  
“I’ll take it, sounds like you’re better at it than me, and I’m definitely rusty.” Clarke loops her palms with the ends and stretches the remainder between. He deftly pinches a couple places and pulls, making the Cradle faster than she had ever managed. “Okay, so-- you want to keep talking about Mount Weather?”  
  
“Yeah.” They continue playing, passing the string back and forth but working a bit more slowly while he talks. “When Lincoln took the Red, I was terrified, but the worst part was that I knew I’d brought him back into a situation he shouldn’t have been in. O tried to tell me. I knew something was off and that he was struggling, but I pushed because I knew I needed to get into the Mountain.” He pauses to adjust the string back onto his thumb. It slid off, but didn’t unravel the rest. “So I hurt yet another person I cared about. That’s what I do.” His eyes close, his lower lip quivers. She slides her hand over the upper side of his and sweeps her thumb comfortingly between his thumb and forefinger, as he’d done for her when they’d pulled the lever that killed all those Mountain people.  
  
“Bell, please try to forgive yourself-”  
  
Bellamy drops the game, turning one hand to clasp hers, rubbing his eyes with the other. “You don’t get it, Clarke! It’s not that simple.”  
  
She’s startled but fights to school her expression. “Please explain. I want to understand.”  
  
“I cared about people in the Mountain!”  
  
Sudden appreciation for what he’s saying fills her. “You said that when we argued in Arkadia, but it- it didn’t sink in, what you actually meant.”  
  
“I didn’t think so, but there was a lot to take in.” He doesn’t appear angry, just hurt and tired. “Clarke, think about it. There were a lot of people in there who helped me. I was physically inside the Mountain for eight full days. I slept about thirty minutes every night, locked in an out of order bathroom stall. I didn’t have anything to eat until a couple days in because Maya was nervous to draw too much attention. Before they took me inside for processing, the doctor evaluated all of us, to decide if we’d be harvested or turned to Reapers, and honest to god I watched Lincoln, high on that fucking drug, hurting, and I was terrified they’d do that to me. I tried to escape, for myself, for Lincoln, to help Lincoln... but they knocked me out.” He reaches desperately for Clarke’s other hand. She meets him halfway.  
  
“When I woke up, my neck was bound in the same kind of collar as yours was in Polis.” Clarke winces remembering the pain. “They’d stripped me naked, blasted me with ice cold water, injected me with a bunch of stuff, used some sort of ridiculous contraption to shoot pills down my throat. I thought I’d choke to death and, for a second, part of me hoped I would: but I couldn’t let you and the others down. There was this horrible powder they threw on us. Bright green and it burned like fuck. Then they sprayed me again, scrubbing my skin with the same kind of hard-bristled floor broom I’d used as a janitor. They scrubbed me raw until I bled.

"Then I woke up in a cage, wearing some sort of gauze diaper, with caged Grounders on both sides and underneath me.” Bellamy holds onto Clarke and finally lets himself completely spin out. They’re both near tears. “Echo was next to me.” Bellamy’s eyes narrow. “They were going to take her, but I acted out and pissed them off so they’d use me. I figured the best way to escape was to get out of that stupid cage. They sedated me, though. When I woke up, there was Maya with an empty shot of adrenaline.

"In the middle of freeing me, a guard named Lovejoy came in. Maya played dumb and since she’d already disconnected me from the vitals machine, he thought I was dead, lowered me, released me. I attacked and with Echo’s help,” he shudders violently, “I killed him. He’d tried to gouge my eyes with his thumbs at one point, so I bit him. There was blood in my mouth, running down my jaw; I was still tasting it when we got back to Arkadia. For a long time, when I tried to remember your goodbye-- what you felt like, how you smelled--” his mouth twists in distaste, “it was all mixed with the blood of a man whose small son had tugged on the back of my uniform, _his father's uniform_ , to tell me his dad was training for a Ground Unit. A kid who later died with the rest of his people.”  
  
Clarke wants to say something, but knows he needs to purge this all without her getting in the way. She nods for him to continue.  
  
“When I finally managed to contact you, you sounded so relieved.”

Her hands tighten in his. “I was, Bell. I can’t even explain how much.”

“It was so confusing, Clarke.”  
  
Her heart dips low in her gut. “What do you mean?” She knows, though, now that she’s finally being honest with herself.  
  
Tremulous and gruff, he expands, “Think about it. Let’s take a look at the bullet points: Lexa forced you to kill Finn. You cared very deeply about him and you told me after that she’d actually frigging taunted you for that. Damnit, you were so traumatized you were fucking hallucinating! But, no, we had to keep the peace, so we took Finn’s body to burn it in the Grounder ritual.” Every part of Clarke stings, but she wants to hear it. She needs to hear it.

“On the way there, you tell me that I shouldn’t go to Mount Weather, that it was too big a risk, that you couldn’t lose me, too. For a stupid fucking second, I believed you cared about me. And when we get there, Lexa’s body-man frames Raven and poisons himself, and Lexa jumps to the worst possible conclusion without stopping to think that we had no reason to pull a stunt like that. What would the point have been? Thank god you managed to figure out what had actually happened, or Raven would be dead.

"But then you come to me and tell me that my life is worth the risk! So I went. I went and didn’t say anything because there was no real point in arguing. It was originally my plan, you needed me, I’ll do anything for you and our people, and the one thing I’d ever wanted beyond surviving to keep my sister safe was a pipe dream!

"There was so much to atone for, and if I’d died, at least it would have been trying to help people I’d wronged, so I went.” He raises a hand to cup her jaw, sweetly, sadly. “And I’ve gotta be honest, Clarke. When you said it's worth the risk, it nearly killed me anyway.”  
  
“So you went,” Clarke whispers.  
  
“So I went.”  
  
Sighing and tearful, Clarke climbs onto his lap and hugs him. “And while you were in there, I almost killed your sister. Lexa broke our deal and you helped me murder everyone, even the kids and people who kept you and our people safe, because you wouldn’t let me do it alone.”  
  
His fingers run through her hair in measured strokes. “Then you left. You were gone and, fuck, it ate at me. I was mad, but I understand that you needed to recover; I was so mad, though.” He kisses her temple. Clarke hugs him tighter. “Tried to move on-- with Gina, I mean. She was perfect, but I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t in it. I think she knew. Raven knew. She could see it plain as day. But, Gina, she was so kind and compassionate that I don’t think it bothered her. She would have stayed my friend, and become a wonderful friend to you, because that’s who she was, just pure joy.” A huff of breath warms her cheek, and she cries a bit harder.

“I told her to stay behind and help in Mount Weather. I didn’t want her to be there when I saw you again. Not after when I tried to rescue you from Roan. I wasn’t ready for her to see me seeing you. On the way to Polis I’d decided to break it off with her when we returned. It wasn’t fair. Whatever was, um,” his voice cracks, ”between you and me. That didn’t play into it. She deserved someone she could have a happy future with.”  
  
“I’m so sorry, Bell. I’ve heard that she was incredible. And I shouldn’t have sent you away.”  
  
“She was incredible. And Clarke, you did what you thought you had to. Like you said, we’ve made terrible decisions, but always the ones we thought were right at the time.”  
  
“We make better decisions when we’re together.” She slips a finger over the collar of his shirt to trace his clavicle. Her tears subside.  
  
“Oh, that’s for damned sure.” Bellamy hugs her close and rocks a bit. “Let’s stick with that leadership model from now on, okay?”  
  
Clarke’s laugh, watery and cathartic, buoys them both. Bellamy sighs contentedly.  
  
“Bell?”  
  
“Clarke?”  
  
“Did you manage to have that thing you wanted during those months I was gone?”  
  
He grumbles. “Stop being so obtuse. You know damn well that you’re th-”  
  
His neck plies readily when she pulls his face close. “You’re always so mouthy.”  
  
“Princess, that was an awful pun.”  
  
“Laugh, damnit!” Clarke giggles and kisses the corner of his mouth.  
  
Bellamy groans and takes her jaw in his hand, drags his thumb over the edge of her bottom lip. Resting his forehead against hers, he asks, “Do _you_ feel like laughing right now?”  
  
She touches her lips to his, very softly, carefully; they both still. Inhale. Exhale. A moment to draw from each other and reach equilibrium. A plaintive moan escapes Clarke and Bellamy growls, pulling her closer. His fingers trace lazily down her throat and chest, casting a warm wake. Her grip tightens on the back of his neck and she pulls him closer, coaxing his lips apart to deepen their kiss, her tongue languid against his. Bellamy whimpers.  
  
If you know someone well, there’s something about a first kiss which always feels exactly the way you'd expect but, despite their bond, Bellamy’s Clarke couldn’t have fathomed. It glows bright and filters down to where she sank after leaving him the first time. It salvages from the loneliest places inside her.

When his thumb brushes her breast’s weighted curve, she keens into his mouth and shifts against him impatiently; breaks their kiss and catches his eye. He smiles inquisitively, then holds his breath as she guides his hand beneath her dress. Nuzzling the hollow beneath her ear, he breathes, “Are you sure?”

She burns where they touch, “Yes. Please, Bellamy.”

Trembling, he strokes her inner thighs, her lower stomach, runs his finger along the soft skin where thigh meets hip. When he finally slides his hand into her panties, his fingers into her, she melts and whirls and drowns and comes.  
  
They kiss slowly, desperately, pausing from time to time to remove an article of clothing. Bellamy weeps softly, drinking her in through salted lips. For hours they move with and against one another. Surf and shore. Water and earth. Both roil and churn and dissolve into a solution at each others’ touch until sleep finally washes over them.

**Time: 1013 HOURS**

Clarke wakes up to a kiss on her forehead, a quirked eyebrow, and a wolfish grin. “Hey, sleepyhead.”

She stretches, back arched, and has to laugh at how struck he is by her body in the daylight. Her voice is flocked in sleep, “Mmmm. Morning.”

He kisses her jaw, then whispers, “We have two hours before our meeting with Luna. I think I can get you off at least eight times before we have to shower, nine if we shower together.”

“Wow. Someone’s ambitious.” His palms are rough and roaming; Clarke molds to his touch.

He winks. “Have mouth, will travel.”

Clarke pauses. Earnestly, “I love you and I like you, Bell.”

He kisses the tip of her nose. “I love you and I like you too, Clarke.”

She beams. “And we need each other.” It’s a mantra at this point.

Bellamy nods, then tugs her closer. He’s aroused and hard against her thigh. “And fuck knows we want each other.” He thrusts his hips for emphasis.  
  
“Are you sure? Because you don’t seem up for it.”

His laugh is so hearty and resonant that she puts her head against his chest to memorize its sound.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope that you enjoyed this! I kept changing my mind about things, so it took way longer to finish than I'd planned, considering I started it the day after Join or Die aired.
> 
> If you don't mind, please let me know what you think in the comments below.


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